Ida Leeson - A Life

Ida Leeson was no ordinary librarian. The first woman to be appointed Mitchell Librarian, in 1932, after a very public controversy over whether it was appropriate to appoint a woman to such a senior position, Ida Leeson was a girl from a working class background who successfully penetrated the bourgeoisie to become a woman of achievement in what was still predominantly a man's world. A diminutive, forceful and vibrant woman, Ida resists any easy classification. In what we now acknowledge to be a